Metal horticultural edging strips, which are used to prevent grass from growing into flower beds and gardens, are of various forms, construction and weight. One type of these edging strips that is often used by professional landscaping companies is a heavy gage steel strip that is connectable to additional strips by metal spikes that are driven into the ground. These heavy gage metal strips are of sufficient strength to be driven into the ground by pounding on the top of the strips along its edge, but are of sufficient flexibility to be forced into gentle curves for forming a nonlinear edge.
In order to free-form the desired outline of a flower bed or garden, it is sometimes desirable to form the strip with a preselected sharp angle at a specific location on the strip. The principal angles that often required are angles of 90 degrees or less. These sharp angles are often required in defining the end portion of a flower bed which terminates adjacent a structure such as a house.
Heretofore, these angles were formed by beating the metal strips over an anvil until the desired configuration is achieved. This was very time consuming work, often marred the paint or finish of the metal edging strip, and many times represented waste of material when the metal strip was not securely maintained relative to the anvil during impact, thereby erroneously forming the bend.
In an effort to save time, material and expense, the subject inventor constructed a powered, portable bending apparatus which had the first and second end plates and rectangular carrying element that is slidably along guiding elements connecting the end plates one to the other. A hydraulic jack was positioned between the carrying element and the second end plate and adapted to move the carrying element toward and from the first end plate. The first end plate and carrying element included a respective die part, which die parts were nestable one within the other for bending a horticultural edging strip therebetween.
In this earlier version of this inventor's powered, portable bending apparatus, which was tested in actual commercial use for a period greater than one year prior to filing for a patent application, less than desirable bending of the metal strips was achieved. It was discovered that during bending of the strip, the carrying element sometimes moved to an orientation which was non-parallel to the first and second end plates. In this earlier version, the guiding elements passed through respective holes in the guiding element. This cocking or mis-alignment of the carrying element during bending operations caused unequal friction between the guiding element and the guiding members which resulted in chatter of the carrying element, movement of the metal strip relative to the dies during bending with resultant improper bend being formed, and unequal and mis-directed forces being placed on the metal strip, the hydraulic jack and the entire apparats.
In this earlier used construction, the guiding elements were welded to the end plates. The unequal forces undesirably stressed the weld connections. It was also discovered that this earlier version of the apparatus was undesirably cumbersome to pack and transport. The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of these problems.